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This week we are celebrating Dutch-American Heritage day, which was on November 16. We learned lots of neat facts about the Netherlands. We learned that orange is the national color of the Netherlands, that they are a leading exporter of cheese, and that bicycles are a popular mode of transportation. We have some really cute pictures of 2 of our students on the front and the back of the book. Make sure to check out their shoes 🙂

Like this:

We are a little late in celebrating Dutch-American Heritage Day (it was November 16) but we still had a lot of fun learning about the Netherlands this week! Our sensory group explored boxes related to facts about the country. Our fine motor groups made art projects of Dutch symbols and the language group made a traditional snack!

SENSORY GROUP

If you took a trip to the Netherlands you would need to fly in an airplane! We recorded the sounds of a jet plane taking off on our voice output device and used a vibrating tube to simulate the feeling of being on an airplane.

The vibrating tube was a real hit with the students!

Recognize and respond to different types of sensory stimuli is a science access point.

The Dutch use orange as their symbolic color so we used orange paper shred as the base for this box. There were some little bicycles—it is the world biking capitol of the world—and an authentic wooden shoe! A hand held fan made a pretty good windmill stand in. We also included some felt cheese slices, play people, oranges, and the word “home”.

The science access point recognize a model of a real object is addressed with this activity.

The Netherlands is the official name of the country, but sometimes it is referred to as Holland so we included some letter N’s and H’s to find in a box of ORANGE pasta.

The dried pasta made noise when shaken or moved which added to the fun!

Recognize two objects that are identical to each other is a science access point.

Although we associate orange with the Netherlands, the flag is actually red, white and blue!

There was a picture of the flag to find at the bottom of our rice box. We included 2 different sized spoons for scooping practice.

The math access point solve problems involving small quantities of objects or actions using language, such as enough, too much, or more can be addressed here.

Lots of colorful flowers are grown in the Netherlands—-especially tulips! The students used a tulip shaped cookie cutter to make some beautiful flowers in red moon sand.

Apply a push to move an object is a science access point.

The Netherlands is known for its beautiful skies so we made fluffy white clouds out of shaving cream to float around our sky blue plastic tray!

The students had a blast, as usual 🙂

Track the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled is a science access point.

Since pumps are used to help keep the country from flooding, we added a little pump to our water play this week.

It was great for promoting bilateral coordination and the students had so much fun with it!

The science access point observe and recognize a predictable cause-effect relationship related to a science topic can be addressed with this activity.

As a reminder of the Netherlands beautiful flowers, we used “plumeria” from Bath and BodyWorks for our scent this week. The students used the picture symbols “like” and “don’t like” to communicate their opinion on the scent—–it was a hit with most of them!

Use senses to recognize objects is a science access point.

FINE MOTOR GROUP

We loved the pictures of the colorful wooden shoes we found on the internet. So on Tuesday the students stamped some colorful shoe pictures of their own. We used this: wooden-shoe-template

The students used communication symbols to identify the stamp pad colors (red and green) used for this project.

Identify objects by one observable property, such as color, is a science access point.

Then they used a BIG swirl stamp and a SMALL flower stamp to decorate their “wooden” shoes. We also reinforced the concepts of UP and DOWN here.

The math access point recognize a movement that reflects a spatial relationship, such as up and down is addressed here. Recognize similarities and differences is size of common objects is also addressed.

The students glued their shoes onto a rectangular piece of paper——orange of course 🙂

The math access point recognize objects with two-dimensional shapes is again addressed.

Then the students used a paper cutter to cut out the base of the windmill.

Recognize that pushing and pulling an object makes it move is a science access point.

They rolled this piece of paper around a paper towel roll.

Track the movement of objects that are pushed or pulled is a science access point.

The windmill blades were attached using a brad—-most of the students needed a little help with this step.

Recognize when an object is added to a situation is a math access point.

Ta DA—–wind power!

LANGUAGE GROUP

This week in our language group we made a traditional Dutch recipe called stamppot. Because this is a mashed potatoes dish, all of the vegetables used had to be cut up and boiled the night before.

Our students started out by putting the potatoes (3 had been boiled) into a bowl. Our students had to indicate that there were MORE potatoes after a measuring cup had been filled once and there were some more potatoes left over.

We added GREEN kale (1 cup boiled). Some of he students weren’t so sure how tasty this was going to turn out to be 🙂

Our students then put the carrots (4 had been peeled and cut up) into the same bowl. We talked about the color ORANGE. Boiled carrots have such a vivid color!

We shook some salt into the bowl and added a bit of butter and milk.

Finally, the students got to help MIX the ingredients up by activating a switch that controlled a mixer.

This is how it turned out!

Once it was all mixed up, we counted out bowls for each of the students and dug in………….ok, so some of the students (and adults lol) weren’t so sure how tasty this was going to turn out 🙂

But once tasted, the universal opinion was——–YUM!

Hope you enjoyed learning a little about the the Netherlands this week, we sure did! Join us again next time for more fun and learning——-Group by Group!